


Sand and Salt

by JaneDavitt



Series: Laying a Ghost snippets [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneDavitt/pseuds/JaneDavitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Featuring John and Nick from the Laying a Ghost trilogy by Jane Davitt and Alexa Snow.<br/>It's Nick's birthday and somehow fishing's involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sand and Salt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wesleysgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleysgirl/gifts).



Being woken by a kiss wasn't unusual but the soft grit and shift of sand under him was. Nick made an inquiring sound, his eyes closed against the spring sunshine, his lips warmed by the mouth exploring them.

"You fell asleep." John sounded amused. "The fish are ready. In fact, if you don't get yourself up and over to the fire to turn them, they'll burn."

Nick leaned up on one elbow, brushing the sand from his hair. "God, I was supposed to be cleaning them, wasn't I?" He grimaced. "Gutting them. Chopping their heads off. Scraping out all the… bits."

"Aye," John said cheerfully. "You were, seeing as I caught them and built the fire."

Nick threw a shell at him, missing by an inch because John ducked, grinning. "I get it."

John knelt beside the small fire he'd built between the flat, blackened stones they'd used the last time, still there because people didn't move things much on Traigshee unless they had a good reason, flipping the fish dexterously. He gave Nick a sidelong look that made Nick wake up all the way. "You can make it up to me."

The thought of just how he could do that crossed Nick's mind in a series of images, flickering like the flames. Compensation involved nakedness, his hands and mouth all over John's body, and a lot of appreciative murmurs, it seemed. More than a fair swap for not dealing with handfuls of slippery, stinking, silver-scaled fish.

They tasted good, though. He lay back, a beer bottle that had been cooled in a tidal pool wet and cold in his hand, and used his fingers to pick out scallops of white flesh, tender and flaking.

John watched him, his face still showing traces of a smile.

"Happy Birthday, Nick."

Nick smiled. Even if he hadn't dozed off, he'd never have been made to gut those fish. Not today.

Next week, though… Oh, well. Maybe it would rain and they wouldn't go.

"John?"

"Aye?"

"You don’t fish if it's raining, do you? When you're doing it for fun, I mean; I know the boats go out in all weathers."

"Not go fishing because it was _raining_?" John said, visibly turning the words over and examining them for a hidden trap. "Why would the rain matter?"

"No reason," Nick said hastily. "Just wondering."

"The _rain_ ," John marveled. "Now, if you'd said the sun, aye, sometimes, when the light strikes the water, it can play hell with the fishing, but the _rain_?" He shook his head, then gave a soft hiss of amusement. "Och, you're teasing and here's me not getting the joke." John dug a hole and started to bury the fishbones. "Silly me."

"Ha, ha," Nick said dismally, doing his own tidying. "Silly you."

The shell smacked gently against his shoulder and he looked up to find John grinning again. "You dinna have to come, lad. Not if it's looking overcast. Though I do have a brolly you could borrow, or maybe a --"

"John." 

"Yes, love?"

"It's my birthday."

"I can't tease you on your birthday? Not at all?" John raised his eyebrows, giving Nick a very deliberate, appraising, appreciative look. "Because I had plans."

Nick gave up. "Oh, hell, do what you want, just come here, will you?"

John tasted of beer more than fish. Nick's mouth brushed over fire-warmed, sun-burned skin, salty against his tongue, gritty here and there with grains of sand.

"Say it again," he whispered into John's ear, biting it. "Tell me."

"Happy Birthday?"

Nick bit harder and John yelped, snuggling closer, his hands finding their way under the layers of clothing Nick was wearing. "I love you. For all your funny foreign ways, I love you. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"I think it was the bit where you said I didn't have to come fishing. Ow! Hey! John!"

"You're not to make jokes about fishing," John said reprovingly, his hand hovering above Nick's ass. "Especially not on your birthday."

"I love you," Nick said, capturing John's hand and pulling it down against his ass where it made itself at home. "And thank you."

"For gutting the fish?"

Nick shook his head. "More than that."

So much more.


End file.
